


Doubt That The Stars Are Fire...

by 1f_this_be_madness



Category: Fallen Angels - Walter Dean Myers
Genre: F/M, Fallen Angels spoilers, takes place after the conclusion of Fallen Angels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 16:22:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7229818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1f_this_be_madness/pseuds/1f_this_be_madness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>My thanks to all of the soldiers and nurses who fought in Vietnam. Your sacrifices are not forgotten.</p><p>Thanks also to Walter Dean Myers for writing such a book that continues to affect me deeply.</p><p>The title of this little piece of work is from Hamlet's ill-written letter to Ophelia: "Doubt that the stars are fire, / doubt that the sun doth move, / Doubt truth to be a liar, / but never doubt I love."</p></blockquote>





	Doubt That The Stars Are Fire...

There was this pit, this gulf between us when we saw each other again. I didn't know what to say to her, and her eyes were so sad that I wondered if she would be okay. But I would have learned what to say, and it would've been a privilege to do so. 

When I heard her hospital was hit, I didn't know what to say. There wasn't anything TO say, really. I hadn't known her all that well, not really, but I can still see her smile and hear her telling me to take care in her Texas drawl. I can still feel her lips pressing gently against my own. I can still see that sadness in her eyes, that emptiness, and I feel it inside me too. So maybe I knew her a little bit better than I think . . . we would have things to talk about: seeing the dead and being so afraid. Seeing your own face in place of theirs. Or maybe not. Maybe she was stronger than me, able to work to save the men she could and let the others go.

Maybe she was one of the nurses who tried to save Lieutenant Carroll since she worked in the hospital on the base; or maybe not. A lot of guys go through Chu Lai . . . she probably didn't see him or know who he was and what he meant to us. That we all sat outside the hospital itself, our hearts in our throats and our palms sweating. None of us said anything. Why DIDN'T we say anything?? Maybe if we had, it could've saved him. Somehow. If we had . . . but no, the bullet went right through under his arm. He was dead before he got to the hospital, probably dead as soon as it hit. I just wish to God he wasn't. Just as I wish Judy wasn't gone. But she is. They both are. Them and Jenkins, and Brew, and Dongan, and all those guys from the first platoon; and that woman and her children, and the greenies, and so many others. 

Some deaths I know how to bear, but some were just so POINTLESS. Like Judy's. And Jenkins'. And Lieutenant Carroll's. And Brew's . . . screw it, ALL deaths are pointless in battle. But it's up to the survivors to remember that, to remember and honor them, and to make sure they move on; that the world keeps spinning and we just have to make sure it spins us to a better place.

**Author's Note:**

> My thanks to all of the soldiers and nurses who fought in Vietnam. Your sacrifices are not forgotten.
> 
> Thanks also to Walter Dean Myers for writing such a book that continues to affect me deeply.
> 
> The title of this little piece of work is from Hamlet's ill-written letter to Ophelia: "Doubt that the stars are fire, / doubt that the sun doth move, / Doubt truth to be a liar, / but never doubt I love."


End file.
